The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing tenders from the sides of the keelbone of a poultry carcass carried along a conveyor by a mandrel.
The tender is a portion of flesh lying along the keelbone and ribs of a poultry carcass. There has recently been an increased demand for an apparatus which can efficiently remove tenders from a poultry carcass. Due to the position of the tender on the poultry carcass, efficient removal of the tender has presented problems which have been difficult to solve in the context of an entirely automated mechanical apparatus. As a result, the prior art mechanisms have suffered from inefficient removal of the tender from the poultry carcass and the removal must be accomplished at least partly by manual labor with associated costs and other inefficiencies.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,873,746 and 4,827,570 disclose an apparatus for removing poultry tenders that includes two sets of peeling fingers and a pair of wiper elements which cooperate to peel the tenders away from the keelbone. In another embodiment, a pair of knives are used to initiate the separation process.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,477,942 discloses several variant methods of removing the tenders by manual means. Manual removal of the tenders has the advantage of efficiently removing all of the tender from the poultry carcass. The use of scraping or wiping elements to remove the tender is inconsistent in its efficient removal of all of the tender from the poultry carcass.
There is, therefore, a need for apparatus for removing tenders from a poultry carcass which combine the advantages of automation with efficient removal of the tenders from the poultry carcass while avoiding the use of manual labor.